Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau
Juneau has a couple tourist attractions but the most popular is definite the Mendenhall Glacier. One of the very few glaciers you can drive. Take a bus from the city center for about 15 dollars round trip and they will drive you the 20min up the valley to the Park. The Park is part of the Tongass National Forest if you need to search and they have a nice webpage with visitor information.
Near the visitors center is a nature trail near a stream packed with salmon and some black bears if you’r lucky. A pleasant walk. After seeing how shallow the water is and how many salmon there are, you understand why they had to make a law so that its illegal to fish by just standing in the water and grabbing the fish, lol.
You can take a short walk to the official scenic viewing area but a better idea would be the short hike to Nugget Falls to the right. When we went this still was not an official hike, but they were in the process of putting down gravel to make it one. It’s about 20min to the falls and level almost the entire way. Depending on the water level you may or may not need to step across the rocks carefully or take off your shoes to cross a couple streams. The water was only a couple inches high in the small streams when we went. The waterfall itself is great and you can literally get close enough to touch. Definitely a sight to see.
1. Google Maps Satellite view of Juneau and the Mendenhall Glacier. It’s larger than what you see from the ground
2. Salmon in a creek
3. View from the Park Welcome Center
4-12. The Hike to Nugget Falls
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